The Antithesis

Of course, you already know my response. Wisdom, virtue, truth, goodness, and beauty are all objective absolutes. Whatever is in line with Christian dogma is right. Anything opposed to Christian dogma is a damnable doctrine and should be opposed sharply.

All truth is God's truth. Since this is true, teaching God's truth has not been completely eliminated from the public school system. For when teachers teach calculus accurately, they are teaching God's truth - which is really neat because there is beauty in Calculus. Learning Calculus enables us to discover the Laws of Nature - the beauty and ordered-complexity of God's Creation. Of course, creation itself is an evangelist testifying to the Power and Beauty and Wisdom of the Creator. Praise be to God.

I have little doubt that once the ACLU realizes this, they will push to not allow the teaching of calculus. Calculus, like Jesus, is very black and white. There are right answers and wrong answers. And I'm sure that the ACLU is dogmatically against any dogmatic assersion that Johnny might be wrong, but Billy is right. The new calculus should be very interesting.

Of course, the truly wise and virtuous person does not give praise to Mohammed or Allah or Buddha. Again, wisdom and virtue are absolutes.

To change "those two words (Christ Jesus)" is a really big deal. I don't give in to that for a second. We are living to see the NAME of Jesus Christ be lifted high. It is the Name above all names. There is power and authority in the Name of Jesus. When we pray in Jesus' Name, it is because we know full well that to pray in any other name is a waste of time at best - and idolatrous at worst. Throughout the Bible, exalting the Name of God has always been a huge deal. That is how we get saved: By calling on the Name of Jesus.

You said, "The plain reality is that not everybody in the US agrees that Christ makes an excellent moral basis in education."

To which I say, "So?"

Since when was evil and ignorance a legitimate point of view?

Not everybody in the US agrees that racism is wrong. But since it is wrong, it is taught to be wrong in the public school system - precisely because of the tenacity of Martin Luther King and others who demanded that to be done. And on what authority, did they make that demand? Well, they fundamentally appealed to righteousness. They appealed to the moral law - which is real and true. It matters not that some don't recognize it. Those people need to be resisted.

And the bottom line is that if Christ is not preached in the public schools, other anti-Christian doctrines will be (and are) preached. There is an anti-thesis. There is no neutral ground. A values-neutral education is not possible - nor desirable. Either teachers will teach what God would have them teach in the manner which God would have them teach it in the grace that God gives them to teach it and with His authority, or they are in rebellion against God.

Obedience or rebellion. Those are the only two options.

When God speaks, to respond to Him with, "I'll just take the neutral ground" is to really misunderstand God. People who say this do not know what it is to fear the LORD.

We must dogmatically demand for the State to let our people go, trusting that God will honor our request as we put our faith and trust in Him as we do things His way.

Semantic Squabbles

In general, Dan, I don't have too much trouble with the definitions that you have thrown out. I have a question regarding your definitions, though; you don't ever give your own definition of "virtue". Since this is one-half of the definition you have given for "wisdom" it seems like it would be pretty important to know what exactly "virtue" is. In particular, how does "virtue" differ from "the accumulation, understanding, and application of ... moral... knowledge."

Making morality a part of the education process really gets to the heart of this debate, I think. As a Christian myself, I would have that all students come to realize that their lives are a mess without God and that they are completely inadequate in and of themselves apart from Christ. I want all to choose to follow Him instead of the dead-end desires of this world and seek to place their lives in complete surrender to him. If education has a moral foundation then I would say that I desire that foundation to be Christ.

If it were only that simple.

The plain reality is that not everybody in the US agrees that Christ makes an excellent moral basis in education. Obviously, as your definitions make clear, in Christian education, Christ is the center of this morality. I think we could change just those two words ("Christ Jesus") and come up with reasonable definitions for many types of moral education:

Islamic Education - the cultivation of wisdom and virtue, nourishing the soul on truth, goodness, and beauty, so that, in Mohammed, the students are better able to fully glorify Allah.

Buddhist Education - the cultivation of wisdom and virtue, nourishing the soul on truth, goodness, and beauty, so that, in the Buddha, the students are better able to fully glorify the Divine Reality/Spirit.

I guess my question to you, Dan boils down to this: must morality play a part in education (ie is values-neutral education even possible) and if not, how can we figure out which morals to teach? Or, to put it another way, if we're going to teach morals in the classroom, on what basis can we substantiate our choice of morals to teach knowing that there is a diversity of views on any given moral question?

And, since this is not an easy question, I'm going to let you take it from here, Dan.